Stockton Celebrates Its First Brubeck Festival Without Dave

The 2013 Brubeck Festival in Stockton is the first since the passing of the festival's namesake who died last December at age 91. But the spirit of jazz great Dave Brubeck is very much alive this week at the multi-faceted, citywide celebration.

Among the headliners at this year's Brubeck Festival, which continues in Stockton
through Saturday, March 23rd, are the Tom Harrell Quintet, the
Brubeck Brothers Quartet and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra
led by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.

When Wynton steps on stage with
his 15-piece band Friday night at the Bob Hope
Theatre, you can expect fond words about Dave Brubeck. In 2010, the
two men performed together at the Newport Jazz Festival. That's
when Marsalis called Brubeck "the very essence of what is American
greatness."

(from the Brubeck Collection at University of the
Pacific/photo credit: Andrew Nixon)

"I think it's appropriate that Wynton should be here at the
first festival post Dave's passing," says the Director of the
Brubeck Institute and producer of the festival Simon
Rowe. "Wynton is a very similar figure to Dave in the way that he
has affected the world, the way that he uses the art form as a
platform for discussion of important social issues, cultural
issues."

Civil rights, cultural exchange… both were extremely important
to Dave Brubeck. So was jazz education, perhaps because when he
attended the College of the Pacific all those years ago, he wasn't
even allowed to play jazz let alone study it.

Now, the Brubeck Institute annually recruits five of
the country's top young musicians to study in Stockton. They
get plenty of experience performing too, including spots at the
Brubeck Festival.

(from the Brubeck Collection at University of the
Pacific/photo credit: Andrew Nixon)

"The kids that have been found for the Brubeck Institute, I've
always referred to them as the X-Men," says composer and
multi-instrumentalist Chris Brubeck.

"They're like the jazz mutants that have these incredible
powers.Then they're going on to have really quite successful
careers as they go out in the real world. And that gave my
dad immense satisfaction."

Another thing that gave Dave Brubeck immense satisfaction was
hearing his sons perform. This Saturday at the festival, The
Brubeck Brothers Quartet will honor Dave by performing new
arrangements of familiar tunes of his like "The Duke."

Last year the quartet recorded a CD of this material as a
tribute to Dave, while he was still with us.

"My brother Dan and I and Chuck Lamb the pianist and Mike
DeMicco the guitarist really wanted to let Dave know how much what
he stood for meant to us," explains Chris Brubeck. "We
would come back from the studio and say 'hey dad, look at this take
we did of your tune.' And he would just shake his head when
he'd hear Mike DeMicco play some blazingly fast run from one of his
tunes."

(from the Brubeck Collection at University of the
Pacific/photo credit: Andrew Nixon)

Saturday's tribute concert will also feature some of the
sacred choral works composed by Dave Brubeck, including lyrics by
his wife and musical partner Iola, whom he met while attending
Pacific and who will be coming from their home in Connecticut to
attend the festival.

It will no doubt be a bittersweet night for the family,
friends and fans of Dave Brubeck. Bittersweet perhaps... but, at
least for Chris Brubeck, not sad.

"You know how it is when, like part of your tooth falls out
and your tongue feels this gaping Grand Canyon of a
hole?" asks Brubeck. "We all sort of thought we would feel
that way emotionally now that Dave is gone. But, he left so
much behind that we don't feel that way. We don't feel
empty."

"When you think of the scope and the variety and the richness of
the material and the fact that it's being reworked and recreated
constantly," adds Simon Rowe, "I think there's no way that we
can't feel his presence around us."